X ban in Brazil: "Allowing Musk to disregard court orders sets a dangerous precedent"

gamesindustry.biz:

At the end of August, Brazil's Supreme Court ordered the ban of the Elon Musk-owned social platform X (formerly known as Twitter) in the country.

The decision was the result of a months-long conflict, with Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordering an investigation into Musk in April for "the dissemination of defamatory fake news" as well as "obstruction, incitements, and criminal organisation."

X closed its Brazilian offices in mid-August as a result, and was given 24 hours to appoint a new legal representative on August 28 – or face a ban in the country. The company did not comply and the social platform has been unavailable in Brazil since then. Prior to the ban, X had 22 million users from the Latin American country.

On Saturday, Alexandre de Moraes confirmed that X still wasn't meeting requirements for the ban to be lifted despite naming a legal representative, and gave the company five days to file additional documents – which could potentially lead to the ban being lifted.

While this situation may seem removed from the video games industry, the platform's ban has had a direct impact on many indie developers in Brazil, who use it as their primary network to reach players.

"As a small studio, X was my main social media and I used it for two reasons: promote my games, [and] stay tuned with other indie devs and the global game industry in general," Fernando Tittz Gândara Rezende, developer at Games From The Abyss, tells GamesIndustry.biz. "Without access to it, my international reach has been severely reduced and it's also harder to get fresh news about other indie games, showcases, engine news, and the games industry as a whole."

Luciana Guerrero, community and social manager at Rogue Snail, tells us the studio had to look for alternative ways to keep engaging with its audience. Bluesky has been seen as the solution of predilection for many, with the platform experiencing a boom in sign ups, getting over three million new users in the span of two weeks and